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18
CANNON
“Pipes, say something,” I whispered, imploring her with my eyes to put me out of my misery.
I’d just told her something that I’d barely admitted to myself in recent years. Speaking the truth aloud for the first time ever had been somewhat cathartic, but the way she just sat there staring at me like she was looking at a stranger made my gut knot up.
Piper blinked and took a shuddery inhale. “I felt this pull to you my whole life too. I hated it…and you. I didn’t want to feel it, but I did. I guess we both fought it.”
Relief rushed through me. She felt it too. I hadn’t been going crazy all those times I’d sensed she couldn’t help the need to be near me, as I had to be close to her. But there was still an important question I needed to know the answer to. “How do you feel about me now?”
The tip of her tongue peeked out, dampening her bottom lip as she considered her response. I could see the wheels turning in her head as she thought of what to say, and I held my breath. “I want you, but I don’t trust you.”
Her answer wasn’t unexpected. If I were her, I sure as hell wouldn’t trust me either. I was just thankful she admitted to wanting me. She could have been stubborn and denied it, even after how she’d responded while I was inside her. “Will you give me a chance to earn your trust, Piper?”
“I don’t like it when you call me ‘Piper,’” she muttered, pulling back a little. “I like that you have never given anyone else a nickname but me. My dad gives them to everyone, but you only gave one to me. It’s weird, but even when I was fantasizing about scooping your eyes out with a spoon, I felt special because, to you, I was ‘Pipes.’”
“When was the last time you fantasized about that?” I asked with a laugh, only half joking because I knew she would follow through if she was in a bad enough mood.
She squinted, trying to remember—which was a good thing if she had to think so hard about it. “Maybe a year or two ago?” She shrugged. “You were being a jerk at some after party following the UK Music Awards.”
The memory flooded back in, along with the jealousy that had been driving my actions that night. “That Italian rocker asshole was all over you.”
“He was not.” She rolled her eyes. “He was just glad to have someone to talk to who spoke his first language. Rossi doesn’t even matter anyway. I was really disappointed that I didn’t win the award in my category that night, and you were a jerk.”
I cupped the back of her head and tucked her against my chest, kissing her hair. “Fuck, sugar. I’m sorry. My jealousy got the better of me, and I took it out on you.”
She slid her arm around my waist. “Is that what triggered you all those times. Jealousy?” I grunted an affirmative. “Even when we were little kids?” Another grunt in answer had her lifting her head just enough to look up at me. Back then, my jealousy over her had been different from what it had turned into over the past few years, but the intensity of it had only gotten stronger with time. “But there was no one to be jealous of back then.”
I narrowed my eyes on her. “You seem to have forgotten your annoying infatuation with Lyric. He was your BFFFFE.”
A snicker left her. “What are the extra ‘F’s and the ‘E’ for?”
“Best freaking friends for fucking ever,” I grumbled under my breath, making her fall into a fight of giggles. The sound was musical, but I couldn’t fully enjoy it. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you didn’t deny your infatuation with Lyric.”
“Infatuation. With Lyric.” She gasped between words as she fought her laughter. She laughed so hard, tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. “Now I know you’re full of shit.”
“What would you call following him around like a lost puppy every minute you two were near each other?”
“I did not follow him around like that!” she denied, her laughter finally calming down. “He was my best friend back then. As well as my protector—from you. If it weren’t for him, I don’t know if I would have survived all of your crap.”
“Every time I saw him near you, I had this intense need to make him eat dirt.” Plenty of times, Lyric and I had gotten into fights, and every single time was because of Piper. He’d kicked my ass each time, but I might have let him more than once.
Because I knew I deserved it for what I’d said or done to Piper.
Even as I’d been doing those stupid things, I’d hated myself for making her cry. A piece of my heart broke every single time, yet I’d done it over and over again in an attempt to fight our connection.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I reminded her, needing to get away from the reminders of what an asshole I’d been to her back then. “Could you please give me the chance to earn your trust, Pipes?”
A breath left her on a huff, and she slapped her hand across my chest hard enough to make me grunt in pain before cuddling into me once again. “Fine,” she said in a tone that suggested she was being put out, making me smile. “You get one chance. But that’s all. If you do anything to—”
“I won’t,” I vowed before she could even finish the threat. “I won’t fuck this up, sugar. You’re too important to me to allow myself to ruin the opportunity you’re offering me.”
I wrapped my arms around her tightly as a sense of peace I could never remember feeling in my life settled over me. It was the kind of contentment that everyone I knew in a committed relationship spoke of, but I’d always scoffed at.
But if what they experienced when they were with the person they considered to be their entire world was even a fraction of what I felt just holding Piper—knowing I had a chance to make her mine, a chance to keep her, to love her as I’d been dreaming of over the past few years—then I finally understood.
She tilted her head back onto my arm. “Unfortunately, I still have to follow through with those dates for Feed the Music.” Her lips twisted into a grimace. “I guess my second date showed up and took one look at all the craziness in that club and bailed. I can’t blame them, but I need to make it up to them.”
Laughing, I rubbed my nose against hers. “About that…”
“Please don’t let your jealousy ruin this for the charity, or for us. I want to give us a chance, but if you’re going to fuck this up for them or me, then—”
I pressed my finger softly to her lips, stopping her flow of words before she pissed herself off at whatever she could picture me doing to screw everything up. “I won the auctions for all twelve dates.”
She pulled her brows together as if she didn’t believe me. Sighing, I pulled out my phone and showed her the confirmation emails for each winning bid, as well as the withdrawals from my bank account that I had saved to one file. Gasping, she snatched the phone out of my hand and started scrolling through them all.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, the awe in her voice making me hard as steel. “You… Every date…? This is…”
“Looks like I left you speechless,” I teased, taking the phone and tossing it onto the coffee table. When she still just sat there with her mouth gaping open, I snuggled her back into my side and reached for the remote to the television mounted to the wall. “I’m staying, by the way. Even if I just sleep on this couch alone, I’m not leaving you.”
Although I wouldn’t turn down a wake-up call like I got the last time…
“Cannon.” She grabbed my face in both hands, turning my head to look down at her. “You spent over a million dollars. To go on dates with me.”
“I already admitted to that, sugar.”
She rolled her eyes. “Did you ever once think about maybe, I don’t know, asking me out?”
“In the past two years, I have come close to asking you out at least a hundred different times,” I confessed.
“But you never did. Not once.”
“Because it didn’t feel like the right time.” I covered her hands with mine, and I turned my head to kiss one open palm before pulling them away. “When Feed the Music made their announcement, I knew this was my chance without you being able to turn me down. I guess… I don’t know. I think I was afraid you would shoot me down, and I needed this as a security crutch.”
“Pretty expensive crutch,” she muttered, but a smile teased at her lips.
“Feed the Music is important to you. I’ve been donating to them for the last five years. Giving them a little more for the chance at winning your heart benefited everyone.” I touched my lips to her forehead. “Trust me, Pipes. It was worth every penny.”
“Ugh,” she complained. “I’ve heard rumors about that famous Baby Cage charm, but this is the first time I’ve ever experienced it personally. I kind of like it, but don’t be turning that shit on other people.”
“I’ve gotten into fights over that stupid nickname.” I skimmed my lips over her ear. “You’re the one who started that whole ‘Baby Cage’ bullshit, but you’re the only one who has ever gotten away with using it.”
“That’s because I’m special,” she sassed.
“Fuck yeah, you are.” I buried my face in her neck, her shiver making precome leak from the tip of my cock. “Only you can twist me into knots, piss me off so bad I can’t see straight, and I would still crawl on my hands and knees to do your every bidding.”
“I’m still skeptical about that.” I licked at a spot just beneath her ear, making her purr like a sweet little kitty.
A sweet and sexy murder kitty, maybe. But mine, nonetheless.
“What are you skeptical about, sugar?” I husked against the shell of her ear.
“That you would crawl for me. Or do my every bidding.” She looked up at me through her lashes, and it took everything inside me not to push her back onto the couch and slip between her thighs.
But I’d been serious about her having all the power. I meant it in every aspect, especially when it came to how quickly or slowly things happened sexually. In the past, with other girls, I’d always been the one to call the shots, but I was willing to turn over everything to Piper. Not just to earn her trust either.
Because when she’d dominated every moment of our first kiss, made me beg and work for that taste of her, I’d nearly come in my pants then and there the instant my lips had touched hers.
“The only way I can prove that to you is to show you.”
“Prove it, then.”
